


Crisscross

by Leidolette



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Monsters, Possession, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 07:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13049580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: Next Halloween, the Unknown comes to them.





	Crisscross

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selden/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide 2017, Selden! I hope you enjoy this fic.

_Go away, and never come back._

And so the spirit left and traveled very far away. So far away, that it was no longer in the Unknown at all. The spirit soared over hills and farmland that soon turned into paved streets and brick houses. 

Inside was a sleeping child. Or, perhaps more than a child. The spirit, wicked as it was, slid through the seam of the window pane to hover over the sleeping face. When a fleeting nightmare flickered across the sleeper's mind, the spirit seized its chance and slipped through the momentary crack in their soul.

Outside, on the house's doorstep, the candle lighting the jack-o-lantern flickered out.

* * *

Beatrice's entrance into town was much less dramatic than Wirt and Greg's exit. There was no train, no tumbling, no freezing black water. Beatrice was simply on the familiar trail one moment and someplace very new the next. 

That someplace was apparently a cemetery. A cemetery which seemed very normal to Beatrice at first, but the area quickly became strange as passed through the heavy entrance gates out into the street.

Foreign sights greeted Beatrice in the autumn afternoon's golden sunlight. She watched as a sleek car rumbled past and heard music from a stereo in a garage, though she did not know the names of either of these things. 

"Well, huh," Beatrice said as a kid with a red cape zoomed past her on a bike. 

"Nice costume!" the kid called back to Beatrice. Beatrice looked down at her (frankly, rather boring) everyday blue dress and said "huh" again. 

Beatrice was surprised... but not surprised. Maybe she should have been scared; nothing like this had ever happened to her before, but life was long, and strange, and once you've been abruptly transformed into a bluebird, you tend to be less stiff about experiences such as these. 

And then Beatrice heard something that was very familiar, or, at least it had been a year ago. 

"...watch out there, all your homework is about to fall out of your backpack. C'mon, turn around so I can zip it up before..." a voice said somewhere on the other side of the low stone wall to her left.

Wirt!

"...my art project with Mrs. Cienega! It's a bat who has a hardscrabble life, and now he's..." a second voice answered back.

And Greg, too!

Eagerly, she stepped out onto the cracked sidewalk right outside the cemetery gate, which fortunately put her directly in their path. They couldn't miss her. 

...But, they did miss her. Walked right past her, in fact, without a second glance. "Wirt!" she blurted out, feeling offended.

The two turned around; Wirt's gaze flicked over her. "Uh, do I know you?" he said as his brow furrowed.

"Yes! Of course you do!" Beatrice said in frustration. 

Greg slapped both his hands to the sides of his face (dropping his frog in the process) and gasped. "Beatrice!"

"Beatrice?" Wirt repeated, slowly. 

"Yes, Beatrice! Now get over here, you two." And Beatrice ran over to scoop them into a big hug.

It was a few very warm and lovely moments, before the present reasserted itself. "Wait, why are you here?" Wirt asked as he gently broke the three-way embrace.

Beatrice shrugged her shoulders and made an 'I don't know' kind of noise. "I just kinda... showed up here like fifteen minutes ago, then saw you two passing by. I suspect that's not a coincidence."

"Well, I don't have a clue why you're here either. I guess we'll all just... hang out for awhile?"

"Yeah!" Greg burst in, "You can come trick-or-treating with us!"

And so she did.

* * *

After a quick stop at Greg and Wirt's house so they could change into their costumes (while Beatrice loitered around outside, trying to look natural, the three of them headed out. 

It was really more Beatrice and Wirt taking Greg up and down the streets than all three of them trick-or-treating. There were parents and friends and neighbors chatting on porches and driveways. A couple of Greg's friends said hi, and then a teacher that had had both brothers in kindergarten. The next block, some guys who were appaently in Wirt's year at school tried to chat her up. She went along with it for a little while, then shook them when it was time to go.

Halfway through the night they ran into Sara escorting her very young cousin from house to house. Wirt struggled to make natural conversation and Beatrice and Greg struggled to control their giggles as they gave the very new couple some privacy. As much privacy as they could have dressed dressed in costumes surrounded by passels of excited kids, anyway. 

As the three of them continued on, the night got darker and darker, and the Halloween crowds thinned until there were only a smattering of older kids with rolls of toilet paper left, and even they were diminishing.

Finally, they turned down a street that no porch lights lit. The wind blew a few skittering leaves across the empty sidewalk. Beatrice shivered; her dress was losing the the battle against the late October night.

"I guess that's it then," Wirt said as he surveyed the area. "I'm not sure why you were brought here, Beatrice, but it's not gonna happen tonight."

"Come back to our house, Beatrice! You can have some of my candy," Greg said. "But you have to wait for Mr. Kitty to pick first -- it's only fair." 

While more time with Greg and Wirt did sound nice, Beatrice sighed. "Alright, Greg. We'll try again tomorrow."

As they turned to go, Greg's small safety light that his mother had made him carry this fell more fully on a strange shape they'd passed on the side of the road. The deer bones were neatly arranged in a loose pyramid shape with the naked skull on top. A thin layer of fresh red still clung to the bones. If it had been summer, the pile would have been buzzing with flies, but here in the late New England fall it was terribly silent.

"Uh, is that normal here?" Beatrice asked after a moment of shock.

"It is definitely _not normal_. In fact, it's pretty damn disturbing." Wirt's voice was pitched a little higher than before.

"God, what do you think did this?" Beatrice said as she leaned towards the horrible pile. The sockets of the deer skull seemed so disquietingly empty. She gave the surrounding grass a cursory glance for tracks, but saw nothing. "And god only knows where it went."

"I saw it," said a voice from behind them.

Beatrice, Greg, and Wirt nearly jumped out of their damn skins, but the figure became clear a half second later as a pale, unassuming brown-haired boy with glasses.

"Oh my god," Wirt said with his hand over his chest. "Jason, you scared the hell out of us."

"Sorry, Wirt," Jason said in his obnoxious, friendly manner that Wirt had been so jealous of last year, "and Greg, right?"

Jason turned to Beatrice, surprised, and squinted at her through his glasses. "Oh, hi, I don't think we've met. What's your name?"

"Beatrice." And she stuck her hand out for a handshake.  
The handshake went on just a little too long. Beatrice disengaged with a quick frown. 

"What school do you go to?" Jason asked.

"Uh, a different one?" Beatrice said lamely.

"Jason, what did you see?" Wirt cut in, thankfully.

"Just like, a shadow, or something. It went over there." He pointed down a haphazard trail leading into the scrub woods between the street and park they'd passed a block over. The bare branches of the trees curled over the path, and the whole thing abruptly dissipated into darkness at the edge of the streetlight's glow.

"Mmm, that looks a little evil over there," Greg said.

Beatrice and Wirt's eyes met over Jason's head.

"Well, this must be why I'm here." Beatrice shoved a much conviction into her voice as she could. "Let's go."

* * *

"How do you do that?" Wirt asked after they had walked for a time in silence. They had fallen a bit behind Jason and Greg while Greg enumerated to Jason the intricacies of his frog's palate.

Confused by both the question and the amount of feeling in Wirt's voice, Beatrice said: "Do what?"

"Just, like, _talk_ to those guys from earlier. Michael and Orson are two of the coolest guys in school."

Beatrice struggled to recall them; they had barely made an impression on her."Oh. It's easy when you don't care what people think of you. Those two seemed nice, but they're strangers -- I'll never see them again. It doesn't matter if they liked me."

"I care a lot about what people think of me, even with strangers," Wirt said. The confession seemed hard for him to make. "I wish I didn't!" he said with a sudden vehemence, "I wish I could just do something and not worry about it endlessly. I wish I was like you."

Beatrice walked beside Wirt, not saying anything. She rubbed a hand across her face, vaguely registering that the tip of her nose was cold. "It's not always a good thing" Beatrice said, finally, "Not caring what other people think. When I first met you and Greg, I tried to lead you to Adelaide, even though Greg had just rescued me. I didn't care what you thought of me, or how you would feel at Adelaide's. All I cared about was getting what I wanted."

"What you wanted was to help your family," Wirt pointed out.

"And I was willing to shove you and Greg down to do it."

"Hey." Wirt stopped on the trail. Surprised, Beatrice stopped too. "Beatrice, whatever guilt you're carrying about what happened last year, it's okay." Wirt paused. "Well, it was awful at the time, but, Beatrice, you are one of my closest friends. And I would always, _always_ want you at my side if Greg and I are ever lost in the woods again."

"Oh, you are so on your own if you manage to get yourself lost for a second time," Beatrice said with a soft punch to Wirt's shoulder, and they hurried to catch up with the others.

* * *

"Well, this was a waste of time," Beatrice said as the path petered out to nothing but a small clearing, empty besides a plastic bag and a few empty beer cans.

Wirt sighed, "Are you sure you saw something come this way, Jason?" Wirt turned around to face Jason so he could better see the annoyed look Wirt was sporting. 

But Jason... didn't look so much like Jason anymore. He seemed taller, gaunter, whiter.

"Yes," Jason said in a voice that rasped, through teeth that grew longer and longer. "I'm sure that I saw something terrible come down this path." His skin stretched tight to the point of tearing over his skull and his eyes were as small as marbles in big empty sockets. The toes of Jason's shoes barely swept the ground as he rose up off the dirt trail.

"Oh, what the--" Wirt started.

"AHHH!" Greg yelled, slapping his hands to the side of his face like he was auditioning for Home Alone. His frog dropped to the ground and ribbited in alarm.

"You won't get away this time," Jason said. He was now full ten feet off the ground and the cold October wind he seemed to conjure whipped though his hair and clothes and flapped them about in a mad jumble. "I will keep your bones long after everyone who knew you has passed on."

"No way this is happening, not again," Wirt moaned, backing away from the creature. 

"What the hell?!" Beatrice yelled, the sick fear pitching her voice higher. "You know this thing?!"

"Uh, sort of," Wirt stammered out at the same time that Greg helpfully supplied: "Yeah! Wirt had a crush on it!"

"No!" Wirt protested. 

"Argh! Stop arguing! I forgot how annoying you two could be sometimes!"

"Like you're one to talk here, Beatrice--"

An inhuman screech cut off the rest of Wirt's words as the ragged creature swooped towards them. 

Maybe it was the nostalgic company (or maybe just the shock), but Beatrice's first panicked instinct was to flap her wings and escape into the treetops. Fortunately, her right mind came back to her the next instant and she dived to side, hitting the ground hard but unhurt.

The creature called Jason Funderburker didn't miss a trick. It took a sharp turn to the left and and suddenly it had Greg in its sights. 

"Stop!" Beatrice shouted instinctively. The rock flying towards the spirit had left her hand before she knew it. It hit with satisfying thud, and the creature shuddered in its flight, missing Greg by inches.

"Greg, run!" she shouted. He ran.

The spirit rose up in the air again. Jason's mouth split open at the corners revealing several extra rows of teeth. "Little turtles, come to me."

"Greg! Are you okay?" Wirt's voice called from the darkness, but she was too turned around to pinpoint the area. 

"I'm okay!" Greg shouted back.

"Not for long," the spirit said, and extended one of its terribly long skeleton arms into the darkness, presumably towards Wirt.

"Where's your frog, Greg?! You have to find it!" There was a loud crashing sound.

"His frog?!" shouted Beatrice, unbelieving that Wirt was asking about the frog at a time like this.

"I don't know, I dropped him!" Greg cried.

Beatrice ran over to Greg. "Why does Wirt want your frog?" Beatrice asked as she watched the sky, ready to pull Greg out of the way at the first sign of attack.

"Claudio has a bell inside of him that will make the monster listen to whatever you say," Greg whispered.

"Okay," was all that Beatrice could say. 

There was more crashing from the darkness, and a yell from Wirt.

"Wirt!" Greg screamed, beginning to tear up. Then it was quiet again.

Quiet, except for the croak of a frog, off to her right. Beatrice shot to the side, all her senses sharpened in the dark. She felt through the damp grass blindly, hoping for another ribbit.

An inhuman screech split the night. Heart pounding so hard that the blood in her ears and the adrenaline flooding her stomach gave her a sense of unreality, Beatrice's hand closed over the slimy skin of a frog.

The spirit dropped in her path, very close to her. The baboon-like snout that had begun to grow from Jason's face nearly brushed Beatrice's cheek. "I have you now," the spirit said, merely a statement of fact.

Frantically, Beatrice shook the frog. "Never, ever kill anything else and disappear forever!"

Like the flipping of a switch, the spirit was gone, flung into the air and torn into a million pieces. Each one shined like a star for a moment, and then faded before Beatrice's eyes.

"Wirt! Greg! Are you okay?" She found them both together. Greg was fine; Wirt had some scratches but he was shakily getting to his feet.

"Yeah, yeah," Wirt said breathlessly. Beatrice realized she was panting too. She closed her eyes and tried to steady herself.

"Ow, my head," Jason said in a familiar nasal voice that they were all suddenly very thankful for. "What happened?"

Wirt pointed to the beer cans at the edge of the clearing. "You drank too much of an age-appropriate beverage."

"Really," Jason said flatly.

Beatrice jumped in. "Oh, yeah, is was like, so cool! We were all like 'no one could drink that much!' and then, bam! You totally did it! We were all super impressed." The smile Beatrice was wearing was pure cheese, but Jason didn't seem to notice even a little bit.

"Yeah?" Jason said, a hint of a grin around his mouth.

"Yeah," Beatrice said, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Uh, but we just heard some sirens, so we all go." Wirt herded them all towards the opening of the path, back towards the road.

"Oh, shit!" The previously unsteady Jason found a second-wind and managed to keep a good clip all the way down the trail until they reached the street.

"Thank god that's over," Wirt said as they watched Jason trot off towards home.

"Yeah," was all Beatrice could say. She hadn't felt this exhausted in a good long while. Probably a whole year, in fact.

"And it was all thanks to Alexander here!" Greg held up his frog to better adsorb the accolades he deserved. He gave the frog a little shake and the bell glowed once more in his stomach.

"Shouldn't he have, you know, passed that by now?" Wirt asked. 

Greg's frog croaked a mysterious croak.

"You're right, Barry," Greg said. "Let's go home."

* * *

They all crashed in Wirt's room. Even Greg, who abandoned his own room quickly, claiming that they needed to sleep with his sack of candy close at hand to really appreciate the flavors.

Wirt rather self-consciously offered Beatrice the bed, but she turned him down with uncharacteristic tact. She did, however take him up on his offer of blankets and she stole every one in his mom's linen closet to make a thick nest on the floor. 

They slept in the next morning, which, in a stroke of luck, was a Saturday. By the time all three of them were awake and on their feet, the brothers' mom had left to do errands and their dad ("Stepdad," Wirt said out of habit)was already at work. That left the three them able to take their time. On Greg's recommendation, Beatrice ate her first ever bowl of multi-colored, sugary, marshmallow-filled cereal, which was fantastic. By noon they had slipped out the door and were on their way with no problems. 

The intervening sidewalks between the house and the cemetery were dotted with candy wrapper spent silly string, but the day was bright with sunlight dry and smelled pleasantly of leaves and a slight cold crispness.

"I hope this works," Beatrice said as they stood outside the heavy iron gates of the cemetery. "But it feels like the right thing to do."

"We're really gonna miss you, Beatrice," Greg said, voice soft and wavering a little.

"Oh, Greg, I'm going to miss you too." She stooped down and hugged him with a fierceness of emotion she hoped he could feel.

When she stood up again, there was Wirt in front of her with a face full of affection and worry and uncertainty and satisfaction. It looked like he was vacillating between a handshake and a hug, so hugged him too. She rustled his hair and he rolled his eyes.

"Hey, I'll see you two again," she said.

There was a croak that sounded surprisingly like an "ahem" at Greg's feet, and all three of them looked down. Greg's frog looked goggle-eyed back at them for a moment, then stood up on his long hind legs and began a lovely, slow song in a voice deeper and sweeter than thick molasses*:

_The dreamer's dusk,_  
Cast upon us by fate,  
Turns every color around. 

_Rising up from the well, spills water from the wound,_  
What sounds can we hear, when listening beyond?  
If there is no end, how do we go on? 

_Leaves lay in the woods,_  
Hide last year's footfalls,  
And clear ponds welcome frost.  
Once known, it's gone again,  
Still, with each season's rebirth,  
Our paths cross, and cross, and cross. 

_Our paths cross, and cross, and cross._

The frog finished his song, and crouched back down on all fours with a deceptively normal ribbit. 

The three of them clapped, though Wirt a little more slowly than the others. 

Beatrice patted the frog's cold head. "Goodbye to you too, little guy."

The gates squeaked open easily with a little push, and Beatrice set off down the path she had arrived on just yesterday. Right before the path veered off into the older part of the cemetery with the overgrown trees, Beatrice turned around. 

There was Wirt and Greg and even that ridiculous frog against that cold blue sky. She waved, and they waved back.

When she stepped back into the woods, it welcomed her with open arms.

**Author's Note:**

> *Sung to the tune of the Over the Garden Wall credit song


End file.
